Senior Spokesperson for the Office of the Mayor of New York City | Press Secretary for the Zohran for NYC campaign (New York, USA)
If marketing is persuasion, political communication is persuasion with real consequences for people’s lives.
Meet Dora Pekeč, one of the sharpest young voices behind the messaging of one of the most talked-about political campaigns in the world right now. At just 25, she became the press secretary to Zohran Mamdani, the newly elected mayor of New York City, after helping drive one of the most discussed progressive campaigns in recent American politics. A campaign that managed to turn complicated policy conversations about housing, public transit and affordability into messages that actually moved voters. In New York. A city with eight million opinions.
Raised between Croatia and the United States and educated at Duke University, Dora was deep inside the machinery of American campaigns even before New York politics discovered her talent for message discipline and narrative control. She served as national press secretary for House Majority PAC, the largest Democratic Super PAC, helping shape communications that flipped key congressional districts. She also worked on the re-election campaign of Illinois governor J. B. Pritzker, a winning Chicago City Council campaign and political operations connected to figures across the Democratic Party.
Translation: when the stakes are high and the headlines move fast, Dora is usually somewhere nearby with a statement that lands exactly where it should.
This is going to be one of the only chances (if not the only one) to get the exclusive behind-the-scenes look at the New York City mayoral race that spread like wildfire on the Internet. How do you even build a campaign that spreads online so fast that suddenly everyone, including journalists, brand strategists, designers, communications specialists and the occasional extremely online friend, is dissecting every message?
Dora Pekeč was right there in the middle of it — and she’s ready to share it with you in Rovinj.
Dora Pekeč: Inside The NYC Mayoral Campaign That Caught the Attention of the Globe
Political campaigns move at a speed most brand teams would probably decline. Headlines are shifting every hour, national topics hijack local debates, journalists want answers NOW and eight million New Yorkers are ready to tell you how they could do it better. Dora Pekeč knows that environment well. She worked inside the communications team that helped drive one of the most talked-about political campaigns in the United States and now serves as Senior Spokesperson for the Office of the Mayor of New York City, Zohran Mamdani. Dora will take you inside the mechanics of the famous NYC political campaign and provide insights into what the “rapid” in “rapid response” truly means under the microscope of the global stage — where every move could put you on the precipice of scandal. From fighting headlines to breaking through the mold of the traditional press ecosystem, Dora will reflect on what it means to build trust, balance the benefits and drawbacks of constant attention, and maintain authenticity for a political candidate.
